Eva And John's Weekly Blog From Scotland

11:20:58 o'clock BST

Hi Folks,

Well, it was a really busy weekend in the garden for sure!! The borders were like concrete and it took me ages to break it down and turn it over but the hard work has been done now. We went to B&Q to buy a new lawn mower and strimmer, some lawn repair seed etc so over the next couple of weeks we, hopefully will have some invigorated grass - time will tell. Here is the link to the site http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/index.jsp

We bought an Ivy plant, honeysuckle plant, various covering plants and  some other plant thingy which I can't even spell the name of!!! The garden shed was cleared out by Eva whilst I was doing all the digging so now my car is full of stuff to take to the skip - Oh I might as well tell you before Eva does  about a mistake I made regarding the recycling of waste here in Dundee. You see, we have 4 bins here - the grey one is for general household waste, the brown one is for grass cuttings, dead flowers etc, the blue one is for newspapers and the green one is for bottles. What I mistakenly did was put garden rubble such as stones and earth clodes on the brown bin which is really only meant for composting - we had to turn the whole thing over and rebag for me to take to the skip - yukkkkk!!!

Can anyone tell me how to upload pics on a blog so that you see the full size of pic? At the moment I click on add pics and whilst it works it's just not the same as I see other folks doing - any help would be appreciated guys.

Nothing much more to report here apart from the trampoline being a huge success with Eva's grandson Jamie - god only knows what it will be like when my two boys, David & Michael come through this weekend. The dogs, Phoebe and Lucy have been digging my borders up and Phoebe actually pulled some plants out from their boxes even before I had planted them - I had to give her a smack - she can be so naughty sometimes - she is better on the trampoline enjoying being bounced around for sure!!

Hope all is well with you guys - glad you enjoyed the shopping Southernmoush and good to here from Sunshinecolorado as well - always interesting stuff together with rollinghillsides and the rest of you guys.

Eva will probably add something tonight when she gets back home from work.

Take care,

John xxx

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20:25:54 o'clock BST
Feeling Happy

Hi Folks,

Well, we have had a really nice few days. I picked the boys up on Thursday night and just relaxed when we got back home at around 9.30pm.  It was my dad's birthday on the Saturday (81 years old now) so we went for lunch at a well known little hotel/pub called the Fort Hotel - here is the link.  http://www.fort-hotel.com/

My Dad had fish, Mum had a salad, Eva had Beef Stroganoff, David and I had Roast Beef whilst Michael opted for Chlli Con Carni. It was just so yummy!!!!! We did a little bit of food shopping at Marks & Spencer in their newly opened food hall at Broughty Ferry. We bought a large chicken to roast as we were having the family over for Easter Sunday lunch.  http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/node/n/46485031/026-9645744-2588431?ie=UTF8&mnSBrand=core

The weather has been really good as well - it was actually up to 20 degrees centigrade over the past few days which is great for us here in Scotland and it means all the kids in the area can get outdoors to roll their Easter Eggs. I took some video of our day on Easter Sunday - I must find out how to upload video sometime!!! Handing over to Eva now to tell you more about the weekend.

Hi, Eva here now. We had a great day today with all the family for lunch in our new dining room. We had roast chicken and all the trimmings then an Easter cake and ice cream. The three boys, David, Michael and Jamie enjoyed playing in the garden with the dogs - and of course eating their chocolate eggs. The adults have managed to pack a fair amount of chocolate away too!

I am going to  go back to Weightwatchers with my younger daughter Gayle this week. We hopefully will manage to lose some weight if we encourage each other. We've got my nephew's wedding next month and of course John and I are off to Portugal in June. Woild be nice to get into my bikini- comfortably!!

Fot the wedding, I have seen a nice dress in NEXT ------> http://order.next.co.uk/page.asp?b=G32&p=60&o=1# (the flowery one). Like the shoes as well. But need to drop a dress size first, so am not going to buy it until the week before. Living in hope!

Back to work tomorrow, no real holidays for me until the end of Arpil when I've got a week at home which I'll enjoy greatly. Am at uni Tuesday and Wednesday this week and have a presentation to prepare for then. It's almost finished, just a bit to do. The class are all going out for a meal on Tuesday night which should be good. I'll post a link to the restaurant next time.

Meantime, Happy Easter to all.

Eva and John

 

 

 

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14:55:18 o'clock BST
Feeling Chillin'

Hi Folks,

Tomorrow, or even tonight I'm going to try and do a 'walk through', of the house with the digital camcorder - I'm stilll getting used to it so we'll see how I get on.

Nice as always to hear from suthernmoush , desheltraci, sunshine colarado,  madds xxx, rollinghillsides etc - thanks all you folks and all the other folks we link into. It's so lovely to hear what you guys are up to and all the links you send us.

It has been a quiet week apart from me moving furniture around and still emptying boxes in the garage - Eva keeps asking for something I've not yet emtiped yet!!!!! Why is it that females always want something that is at the back of the garage like a mirror or a rug etc? Only kidding - I have been in and out of that garage looking for things for days and days!! Not to worry - it's all begining to come together now.

Tonight it will be roast chicken with some roasted vegetables including red, yellow and orange peppers together with onions and courgettes so it should be really yum yum coz I am cooking - hee hee!!!!

Hope to send the walk through video sometime tomorrow.

Take care,

John

 

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14:14:44 o'clock GMT
Feeling Chillin'

Hi Folks,

Well, I finally managed to find where I had packed away the digital camera so this morning I took some pics of the house we now call our home although it is still a bit untidy I'm sure you'll all understand that we are in the process of going through boxes and deciding what should go where etc.

It does feel like a home now that we have sorted out what crockery we need, what pots & pans we need and more importantly what sizes of wine glasses we need!!! We opted for the extra large ones so no surprise there!!!! The garage is absolutely full of stuff just now but we will go through the boxes one at a time over the next few weeks and decide what to keep, where to keep it and what will go to charity shops - I personally think Eva could go to a charity shop but even they declined!!! Only kidding - she has just been great over the past few weeks - a real partner in every sense of the word.

I finally managed over the past few days to get my house emptied and totally cleaned - I hired one of those Rug Doctors to clean all the carpets (well you know how Eva continuously spills wine - ha ha ). New lino was put down in the kitchen as the dogs had chewed the original stuff so we'll wait and see whether to rent it out or sell it eventually. It does look pretty good now so it can be marketed either way anytime now.

We had the TV folks over today so now we are digital with five TV points set up around the house although the two of us aren't really TV maniacs but at least there are now connections for my two boys and Eva's Jamie in their own rooms. We have ordered two single beds for the room where the boys will stay (at the moment they are using my old double bed when they come through) and we have also ordered a triple wardrobe from Sterling plus headboards and a tall chest of drawers so that should all be delivered in about 8 weeks. Both the boys bedroom and Jamie's bedroom will be painted by our painter in approx 6 weeks so if all goes well then those two bedrooms will be totally fitted out in 2 months time (fingers crossed).

I am travelling through to Stirling this evening to collect the boys as they will be here for the weekend so I imagine I'll arrive home with them around 8.30pm tonight - Eva will probably have their pizza cooking away by that time. It is Jamie's birthday soon so we have booked lunch at The Birkhill Inn which will be nice - we have both been there before and the food is great - lots for young kids to enjoy etc.

Hope all is well in your world folks - more postings and pics after this weekend.

Take care,

John & Eva ooops and also Phoebe (woof woof!)

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20:38:05 o'clock GMT
Feeling Quiet

Hi all. 2 weeks since the big move. It's amazing how we've settled in already. The house seems like home and we've managed to put all our things together with little effort. Need to get some bookcases for the hall from Ikea still and wardrobes for the boys' room. John's mum is buying new beds for them so will be good.

I've been working so much that poor John has had a lot to do. He's emptied boxes, fitted lights and generally done almost everything! I am very grateful to him. I've been washing and ironing today and with it being Mother's Day, had visits from both my daughters and grandson bringing cards and presents. One of the presents is a book which consists of a poem about chocolate- no-one gave me chocolate- my waistline will be eternally grateful!! Then we went to see John's mum for Mother's Day. I must admit it is at times like this that I miss my own mum and realise just how lovely she was and how much I still miss her. It's six years since she died but I can still hear her voice and almost smell her perfume in my head, if you know what I mean.

Going to get pj's on now and settle down to a Mother's Day treat watching an adaptation of Jane Austin's Mansfield Park on TV. Heaven! Only thing is I need some chocolate to eat to really make it special- and I haven't got any!! Oh well, such are the penalties one has to pay for vanity. Ha! Ha!

Love, Eva.

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10:06:21 o'clock GMT
Feeling Ecstatic

Hi Folks,

Well, what a past two weeks it's been since our last posting but now I can say we are finally here in our new home at long last - it was such a stressful time moving two homes into one but we are now at the stage where we can finally 'kick back' a bit and enjoy everything. We are back on wireless broadband - woop de doooooooooo!!!!!! It came back yesterday as the phone company did what they had to do at the exchange - you know - flicking a few switches here and there so now normal service has been resumed!!!

I counted the number of large removal boxes we had packed, then had to open and it was over 40! We still have a garage full of stuff so we may have a car boot sale (yard sale I think you call it in the States) and also give some stuff to the charity shops in our area.

The outgoing owners of the house had left it in immaculate condition so we didn't need to do any cleaning up whatsoever apart from one thing and it was quite a big thing. The previous owners had one of these large and I mean large LCD TV's which had been bolted onto the wall in the lounge (42 inches of TV) and we were left with a wall which had a huge hole in it plus 4 large bolts sticking out which had been screwed through the plasterboard and into the actual brick of the house.  The dado rail had also been cut to accommodate the TV and wallpaper was missing around the surround. It looked awful! We looked at our options and came up with three. First we looked at installing a fireplace to hide the offending holes and bolts but it was too high for a fireplace to hide the holes. Then we looked at completely redecorating the room which would have been a shame as we liked the current style. Finally we looked at buying a replacement LCD TV to put up where the previous one was to hide all the mess. In the end this is what we did although the TV we chose was slightly smaller than the one the previous owners had so you could still see the top bolts and the huge hole in the wall.

You know the old adage ' if you want to make an omelette then you have to crack an egg' - well that is what I did last night. I took a hammer and a chisel to those blooming bolts and smashed my way through the brick to get them out which I finally did although I did leave one unholy mess in the plasterboard. Lady luck must have been smiling on us though as that evening the chap we use for painting and decorating was coming round to give us an estimate for painting two of the spare bedrooms. When he saw the state of the wall he said he couldn't leave us with the wall looking like that and he proceeded to plaster over all the holes which was really good of him and we appreciated his kindness so much. He wouldn't even take any payment for the work saying that it was just a five minute job but to us it was a lifesaver as our lounge now looks 'normal'. Today I am skimming over it, sanding down and will repaint. I traced the manufacturer of the dado rail and have reinstaed it as well. The previous owners had also left some of the wallpaper so I was able to patch it.

We had my two boys, David & Michael over last weekend amongst the chaos and it was just great to see them enjoying the space they now have in the new house. The dogs Lucy & Phoebe are both doing well although Lucy is being looked after for the moment by Eva's daughter Elaine and her grandson Jamie - it may be that she stays with them and we just keep Phoebe but we'll see how that all pans out in time.

We are enjoying exploring our new surroundings - taking Phoebe for walks and planning what we are going to do with the garden in the summer - already a few things are going to happen which seem to involve me and hard manual labour!!!!! Hummmmphhh!!!! Eva has already had me change the layout of the furniture in the lounge about three times but I think we have finally arrived at the finished article - you never know though! We hope to take some pictures of the house and surrounding area over the next few days and will post them so you can get some idea of the place and where we take Phoebe for walks etc.

That's about all for now so take care and look out for pics coming shortly.

John

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15:34:40 o'clock GMT
Feeling Anxious

Hi Folks,

Oh my goodness - I knew that moving home was traumatic but moving two homes into one is an absolute nightmare!!!! My house is the smaller of the two and already I have managed to fill 18 large boxes and that doesn't include clothes, foofdstuffs or cleaning materials - I shudder to think how many boxes Eva has at her house and I have to go over there shortly to bring stuff down from her loft and get the bed dismantled - I hope this moving into the one house is all worth it - I'm sure it will be but just at the moment I could scream and I'm positive that Eva could as well.

Our camera's have been packed away so the next posting you will probably get from us will be from our new house with pictures so long as our broadband connection is up and running - somehow I think it will not all go to plan and we will be left without internet access for a few days although the phone company and AOL seem to be of the opinion that everything will transfer smoothly - ha ha or is that me just being pessimistic?

Take care folks and we look forward to hearing from you in our new home soon.

Bye,

John & Eva xxx

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15:28:55 o'clock GMT
Feeling Happy

Hi Traci,

Thanks for your comments - you should see the garden there in summertime  -  it is absolutely wonderful - we will post pics of it then.

Take care,

John x

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09:09:27 o'clock GMT
Feeling Happy

Hi Folks,

Just some pics of my sister's holiday house on Loch Tay in deepest Perthshire where we spend many a happy long weekend with the puppies and the kids.

We love the Rayburn in the kitchen which is the heart of the house and also the wood burning stove in the living room which is fantastic during cold winter days - really nice to cuddle up to, reading a book and enjoying a glass of wine!

The house move is going well although pretty nerve racking but we will get there. Hopefully not long after we move our broadband connection will be sorted and we will be back online but you never know with these things!!!

Take care guys,

John & Eva xxx ooops Phoebe & Lucy as well - woof woof !!!!

John & Eva

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00:00:48 o'clock GMT
Feeling Chillin'

Hi Folks,

John here. Now that we have managed to change our URL hopefully everything will be better. I'm just trying out a few things and no doubt we will learn a lot from you guys about how to upload pics in different styles , shapes and sizes. My two boys spent the weekend with us so now it is full steam ahead with the removal - if you stay still too long in this house then you are likely to be put in a box and taped up for removal any time!!!! Ha ha ha!!!

This was a pic taken at Loch Tay a few months ago - just trying it out to make sure it works - bear with us please!

Hope you all had a great weekend and we will send lots more info and pics of the move over the next few days.

Take care,

John & Eva xxx

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